LONDON--(EON: Enhanced Online News)--Technavio’s latest report on the global
flywheel energy storage market provides an analysis on the key
emerging trends expected to impact the flywheel energy storage market
through 2020. Technavio
defines an emerging trend as a factor that has the potential to
significantly impact the market and contribute to its growth or decline.

“The
increasing focus and intermittent nature of renewable sources increases
the demand for energy storage such as flywheels. Flywheels are
highly reliable, safe, and energy efficient”

Energy storage technology is used to store surplus electricity that can
be utilized during power shortages, blackouts, and peak hours of demand.
A flywheel energy storage system is a mechanical battery that stores
kinetic energy in the form of a rotating mass. Flywheel energy storage
systems have a longer life, are more reliable, require less maintenance,
and have increased efficiency when compared to other energy storage
systems.

Technavio expects the flywheel energy storage market to grow at a CAGR
of almost 20% during the forecast period. The two major factors
impacting the growth of the market are intensive industrial development
and growing populations. Both these factors have significantly increased
the global
demand for power. In developing nations, the demand-supply gap
of energy frequently leads to power shortages, leading to greater demand
for power backups. Flywheels offer a way to improve the quality of
generated power. They are capable of providing energy on short notice
and can be operated at low costs.

Rachana Nair, a lead analyst for energy
storage at Technavio says “Flywheel systems are used as
temporary backup sources during power disruptions. Flywheels directly
compete with other conventional alternatives for uninterrupted power
supply (UPS), such as batteries and diesel generators, but they offer
longer lifespans.”

The top three emerging trends of the global flywheel energy storage
market according to Technavio’s analysts are:

Growing use of renewable sources

Fossil fuel is the most extensively used power source worldwide.
However, combustion of fossil fuels releases a large amount of GHGs,
causing global warming and extreme weather conditions.

Several developed and developing countries are working on sustainable
and clean energy sources such as wind, solar, and biofuels. “The
increasing focus and intermittent nature of renewable sources increases
the demand for energy storage such as flywheels.Flywheels are
highly reliable, safe, and energy efficient” says Rachana.

The power output from solar photovoltaic (PV) depends on the strength of
sunrays, which vary according to the time of the day and the amount of
cloud cover. Managing this variability can be overcome by the use of
flywheel technology, which can stabilize frequency and voltage based on
requirement.

Increase in R&D in flywheel energy storage

Intensive R&D is taking place in the flywheel energy storage industry.
In 2014, the Australian Energy Storage Council in collaboration with
Ecoult and Californian Energy Storage Alliance (CESA) conducted research
on the emergence of storage technologies.

Many countries in collaboration with various flywheel system
manufacturers and universities are also conducting intensive research to
enhance the applications of flywheels. For instance, in 2012 the UK
government in collaboration with Ricardo, GKN, Torotrak, and certain
universities, invested in research related to the use of flywheel energy
storage technology in hybrid vehicles. This collaboration resulted in
the Flysafe project, which studied the failure mechanisms and behavior
of high-speed flywheels.

Use of flywheel technology in HEVs

HEVs usually use a chemical battery as a source of assistant power. The
use of flywheel is more suitable compared to chemical batteries such as
nickel metal hydride battery or lead acid battery because flywheels
offer a long lifespan, high energy storage density, easy maintenance, no
emissions, and less charging time.

Flywheels are also suitable for improving power quality by stabilizing
the fluctuations during power generation. They can rapidly charge and
discharge. The need to control grid frequency will increase with growing
penetration of intermittent renewable energies.

Technavio analysts have identified the following top vendors in the
flywheel energy storage market:

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About Technavio

Technavio
is a leading global technology research and advisory company. The
company develops over 2000 pieces of research every year, covering more
than 500 technologies across 80 countries. Technavio has about 300
analysts globally who specialize in customized consulting and business
research assignments across the latest leading edge technologies.

Technavio analysts employ primary as well as secondary research
techniques to ascertain the size and vendor landscape in a range of
markets. Analysts obtain information using a combination of bottom-up
and top-down approaches, besides using in-house market modeling tools
and proprietary databases. They corroborate this data with the data
obtained from various market participants and stakeholders across the
value chain, including vendors, service providers, distributors,
re-sellers, and end-users.

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